Part 1
The soapy smell of clean filled the air as she sat down. Her hair, a grown out pixie, was chestnut. I buried my half-finished poem with my pen. Under its ink-scorched funeral I wrote the word Luxurious. It was the day, Freshman year, and insecurity followed me like parenthetical notation. The tardy bell slept for two more minutes when she turned suddenly.
“Did she hand out a syllabus?”
“What?”
“It’s a list of assignments for the year and.”
“I know what it is. No.”
“I’m Allie. We just moved from Ohio.”
“I’m Lance.”
“Are you Lance, alot or just on weekends?”
I’d written the same joke in a journal when I was ten-years-old. This is not real. She can’t be real. She turned. Another soap envelope. Luxurious.
A mask of freckles covered her face ending abruptly at an equine jawline. She flicked her hair. A constellation of faint pimples peeked from beneath shimmering chestnut. She was not real. She walked deliberately. As if too much speed would cause her to fall, too little, the same. Pale yet radiant flesh wrapped her small frame. Allie had me from day one.
An incisor rested too high on one side of her smile as she said,
“You like to read?”
I sat in the library, driving away talk with absence. No one bothered you in a library. Great for napping or catching a National Geographic induced dream when no one noticed. She was standing above me as I sat indian-style. Her wrists covered with bracelets I’d never noticed.
“Nice bracelets.”
She looked away. “My Dad bought them.”
“You guys moved into the house over by the old Stadium, yeah?”
“How did you know that?” Supernumerary smile that drove me wild.
“I walked by and saw your Dad’s car. Figured that’s where you lived or something.”
“Yeah, he bought it at an auction.”
“My grandfather built that house.”
“Really? That’s cool.”
“Yep. We used to break-in.”
“When?”
“Middle School. We didn’t do much. Just sort of walked around. Found some old bottles in the basement.”
“Who is we?”
“Dave and me. He was my best friend. Moved away at the end of last year.”
“Sorry to hear that. We move so much I don’t really have a best friend.”
“You got one if you want one.” (Where did that come from? She doesn’t like you. Loser. Been here you’re whole life and not one…)
“Sounds great. We’re not in the book. Here’s my number.”
She pulled a paper from her book.
“What chu readin?” I said.
“Stranger in a Strange Land. You like sci-fi?”
“Asimov. Never read anything by that guy.”
“I’ll loan you this when I’m done. Call me. It’s an awesome book.”
She drifted away delicately. Her flat behind trying to twitch, her legs suddenly skinnier than I thought earlier. Was that the same sweater she wore Monday? I had a girl’s number. I liked metal but could tell by the pins on her jacket, she didn’t. Certainly she had no interest in the bread bag-wrapped Playboys stealthed away in the woods. That left books and how from the moment I smelled her she was all that mattered; how that second day when she asked me again for a syllabus with that quirky forgetfulness I instantly treasured; how I loved her that day at lunch when she sat silent then began to cry and ask for forgiveness; how my every waking thought resembles the softness of her voice. From those moments until now as she walked away, I loved her. I could tell her I loved her every day from now til death and never say it enough or right or in a way that makes her see it. How do you say “Listening to you breathe is better than breathing alone.”?
Deep in our basement was a box labeled Scouts. I hated Boy Scouts but Dad had loved it so I was there, back in the day. He bailed and all that Be Prepared Scout Law loyalty got boxed and hidden. I found the binoculars.
She would never want me. My crooked mug was jeweled with black, badger eyes, perpetual acne. A sheen of stupid reflected off my face as I looked in the mirror.
“She said call her. She gave you the number for a reason dumbass. Call her. And say what? Talk about books. Asimov. She likes sci-fi, probably reads alot. She cried at lunch. What was that? She’s bonkers dude. Bonkers. Freakin’ gorgeous and never talks to anyone. Except you. You. She talks to you.”
I wiped the mirror as the steam from the shower kicked in.
“Call her after your shower. Promise. Promise? Promise. Okay, I promise.”
I took another shower. It seemed wrong to call a girl without a shower.
She didn’t answer.
Her house sat on a corner in the southern part of town. I walked through the woods behind the stadium. The wall was nine feet all around but there was a part where the trees allowed a parkour ascent. I topped the wall. The moon was low on the horizon causing the wall to blend with swaying shadows. I balanced around the wall careful to stop whenever headlights commanded. No way, I thought, anyone can see me from this distance at night without looking for me. Hey Gladys, let’s go see if some kid is walking the stadium wall at night! Such things didn’t happen. I reached a point near the locker rooms where I could see her house. Without the binoculars I could make out the downstairs lights. Through the louvres of a half-opened venetian I could see her Dad. He had a sawhorse in the living room. Plywood stacked in the corner.
What the hell are you doing? I whispered. Why use a manual saw?
I lifted the binoculars and began looking around the house for glimpses of Allie. Her Dad looked up and I could tell by his veins and gaping mouth he shouted something. He smiled and picked up the plywood.
“I called you last night.” (So?)
“Really? Sorry. I wasn’t home, able to answer. Home. I wasn’t home.” Super numerated and sad. (You’re just seeing things. Douche)
“That’s cool. I found this at the dime store up town. Heinlein wrote short stories too. It’s six of them in one book. Thought you’d dig it.”
“Dig it? Hippy. Hell yeah, thank you.” She skipped and kissed my cheek. “Thank you.”
I’d never kissed a girl and she never said whether I did it right. But we kissed for what seemed an hour. I heard people laughing in the hallway. Her mouth was small, wet and slow moving. I hardened against her then pulled back.
“Sorry about that.”
She smiled, then suddenly looked sad. The same sadness she showed just before crying.
“Call me later. I might be home tonight. I don’t really know.”
“Okay.” She walked away.
“And thank you.” I said. (Such an idiot)
She twisted quickly into the girl’s bathroom.
I wanted to invite her over. Play Robin Williams records just to listen to the echo of her laugh. Shake up the kerosene stinking walls a bit and see what dust falls. I loved Iron Maiden but somehow came across this Tom Waits album that made me think romantic sad thoughts. I wanted to play it for her. Would she cry when he wailed his love? Would she figure out I meant her and me and one day when we were old and drank coffee? Even if she were gone daddy gone I wanted to be there for her. Pain, in her name, was pain rewarded. But I sat there by myself listening to Martha knowing none of this would work out.
I called. Her Dad picked up.
What?
Is Allie there?
A silence of unsettling length.
Naw. Not really. She’s over ’ter mom’s house.
Thank you sir.
He hung up before I said sir.
The path cut through the heart of the woods. It led back to the low wall which rose like a dirty, discarded fingernail from the dark skin of earth. I pulled the binoculars up while leaning on the locker room roof. He was downstairs moving around in panicked motion. He’d touch the railing at the bottom of the stairs, then bolted back to the living room. Stand in the kitchen for a few minutes his lips moving like an auctioneer. Boxes sat near the door. His veins bulged in volume. On the night air I barely made out the reverb. His yell blended with air and distance, coming off as remnant of a song or radio program from the day. My heart thumped like a flat tire slapping a hundred miles an hour. I watched him go upstairs. No lights came on. I looked at the windows tighter. The plywood. It was covering every upstairs window. A sudden flash came from the lower right corner of a window. A quick flash with jerky shadows, then bright light. Another shadow. No light. Echoes of a radio program yelling come across the field. I pull the binoculars down as if I can see better. The house sits quiet from this distance. An empty lot separating it from the nearest neighbor. Lights on at every house around. Must-see TV splintering open screen windows. My god. What?
He comes down alone. I whisper to myself with a dry mouth.
She’s not home fucker. Why are you going upstairs?
He picks up the phone, speaks briefly and then hangs up.
I sat in third period the next morning looking at her empty chair. The teacher glanced that way when saying her name but moved on after. She wasn’t here. No one noticed. It was Okay. Surely. The classes came and went. Back on the wall staring at the house. He was downstairs smoking. No lights upstairs.
The third day the teacher seemed irritated.
Any know what’s going on with Allie Watson?
She looked at me. I shrugged silently. Heart sinking down a pit of black. I need to go by during the day. Take a route that put me close to the house without being obvious. Her Dad knew me and deep down I knew I had to avoid her Dad like you avoid unknown, barking dogs.
The next morning I woke up knowing she wouldn’t be at school. I showered and left for the bus stop. From my house at the time it was a two block walk, hop the creek and up a slight rise to the bus stop. If you took a left at the creek, you’d end up down by my Grandparents’ house and the woods where we’d play War as kids. If you took a right at the creek, you’d end up headed uptown near the police station, arcade and old lady beauty shops. I moved slow, pacing myself so as to avoid the other kids. They’d long stop talking to me. It was winter and my entire fall had been Allie Watson and reading. I stooped at the creek as if the bus driver would care. I waited and waited. It was cold. I heard the kids talking at the top of the hill. The distant laughter or sudden burst included in many stories. I waited until the diesel engine revved up and moved away.
I came up near Allie’s. I didn’t top the wall. I just walked as casual as possible down the alley behind her house. I took a left at an abandoned house three doors up. It was a two-story with a brick face and peeling-paint siding. I knelt by the oil tank in the back and watched her house across the backyards. Nothing. His car was gone.
I missed Dave just then. Months back he would’ve been there. Saying? Well, one of two scenarios.
Why are you talking to that crazy-ass girl with the weird bracelets and pop princess pins and the crying at lunch?
Or.
When are we breaking-in that house and uncover whatever Stephen King shit is happening?
The butterflies in my stomach lamented Dave’s absence because of the former.
I smiled at the latter and restarted my casual descent down the alley.
The sounds of our town were music to those aware of such a melody. Trains connecting. Cars rushing through on the highway. Crickets and cicadas battling at night for silent applause. The cackle of laugh tracks through screen windows as a curtain of humidity dropped at summer’s dusk. These sounds taught me, even then, the value of hearing a heartbeat when all else seems dead. I listened for cars around the corner. Cars up on the main road two blocks up. The sound of AC units indicating at home Moms or retirees. Allie’s neighborhood was quiet except for the quarter notes of my scuffling feet. Their house stood basking in the early morning light.
Dave would’ve been proud of the quick work I made of the basement screen window. It was as I remembered. A dark, cool place with the aroma of moldy dirt and rotting wood floating invisible to the eye, disturbing to the nose. Light dropped in from what were now high windows, here and there covered with grey wood. Fragments of water pipe insulation cowered a corner. The low ceiling kissed my spiked hair as I climbed the narrow steps. They led into the kitchen. The door was locked from the other side with a wooden block dropped into a homemade catch. I looked around as my eyes adjusted. A cardboard nail box sat dusty on a framing timber. I twisted off a piece and slide it into the sliver of light between door and jamb. I clicked the wooden block up and felt the door’s tension soften. I didn’t move. I tried to hear any creak or turn or opening or closing of any door or closet that might indicate I needed to run like my ass was on fire. I held my breath for one minute. Slowly I exhaled, hearing no sound for the full sixty. I entered the kitchen.
The kitchen was empty except for a few scraps of paper on the kitchen counter. I flipped through the cabinets like a Price Is Right girl and found nothing. There was no table, no pots and no utensils in any drawer. The living room, empty. What the old folks called the sitting room, vacant. There were still curtains on the windows and from the outside I knew there was still plywood blocking an outside in view upstairs. Nothing was left. I walked upstairs, moving faster and with more confidence as it settled that I was actually alone.
A bathroom was across the hall from me. Door ajar. From this angle I could tell it was empty. There were four bedrooms upstairs. To my immediate left was the first one. It’s floor was flavored with sawdust and crushed beer cans. I looked at it from the hall. I remembered the night when a light came and went in the corner of a plywood covered window. It was the next room. Second on the left. I walked towards the room. The door was brown. One foot above the factory-issued knob was a padlock. I pushed the door open.
The plywood was doubled against the window. I walked into the room slowly. It was hot and dark. Wires from a ceiling light hung down, taped off. Electrical outlets were covered with wood screwed pieces of cut plywood. The floor, hardwood and dusty, showed no sign of a bed or a dresser. There was no indication anywhere that this room had been used for anything more than storage. A refuge for unneeded items. I turned to walk away when a flash of language caught my eye. I looked carefully at one of the plywood curtains. I found the language again. It was scratched into the corner. The letters were jerky. More scraped with narrow metal than carved. After a moment I deciphered them:
Duran Duran poster goes here.
I turned to the right and saw the closet. It was a double-door closet left partially open. It was the only sign of life left in the house. Something shiny was peeking out at me through the louvres. I walked over and opened the doors wide.
There, attached to the wall with four bolts, were two chains. They hung down about two feet and the paint behind them showed signs of the chains moving back and forth repeatedly. My stomach turned, my mouth dried. I shivered as my eyes moved down the chains to the shackles at the end of each. They were the perfect size for a fifteen year old girl. I saw her bracelets and face as she turned and told me her Dad bought them for her.
Son of a bitch. I said.
I wanted to touch them. Check to see if they were real but felt that, somehow, I would be as guilty as he if I dared. As if this was about what I believed or didn’t. What I knew and what I didn’t.
Useless piece of shit bastard. I said.
The closet smelled of urine and iron and in that moment I began to feel nauseous. I stormed to the bathroom and threw up. I came out moments later. In the room across from Allie’s were hooks hanging on the wall. As if he had things hanging up on the wall. I looked around the room and on the floor saw the imprint of four feet. Like a sawhorse but wider. I walked around this room confused, wondering what was sitting there in the middle of the room. The walls (except where the hooks were) and plywood were covered with a foamy material I would learn later was soundproofing. In the corner I found a small black piece of material. I looked at it in my fingers. It was an inch long, less than an inch thick. It was familiar but not at the same time. I smelled it for reasons unclear. It was leather. A strip of black leather like the ones used in whips.
I yelled her name as the lump in my throat gave out
Allie! Allie!
I began to ran down the steps.
You fuckin’ son of a bitch. Useless piece of shit. I need to tell the cops. Find somebody.
Where are you!? I screamed. You fucking shitbag!
I’ve got to find the police. I ran to the front door. It was locked. I pulled and pulled, forgetting I’d broken in. As if I’d stop by for lunch and realized that Allie Watson had been her Dad’s…and how he… I couldn’t stop pulling on the door.
Let me out you fucker! Let me out!
Part 2
I was two blocks away when I stopped running. The police station was near the three-blocks of abandoned stores we called downtown. I paced myself, building the story.
I thought I saw something weird so I broke in. (but the house is empty, son)
I heard a voice call out. (but the house is empty, son)
I think something’s happened to Allie Watson. (didn’t you and that Myers boy break into some houses a few months back, son?)
An older kid, with a supped up Fairlane, pulled up next to me.
Hey kid, you need a ride, it’s about to rain.
I turned and it all came out quick and ugly. How I loved her and the smell of her shampoo and the walls and the binoculars and how I broke in and how I really think she’s in trouble but no one will listen because I broke the law finding out and how man I just don’t know.
The older kid, his name was Mike Richardson but everyone called him Mighty Mouse, listened from his idling Fairlane.
Get in kid. We need to go to the police.
They won’t believe me.
You can’t help your friend being a little bitch. Quit being a little bitch and come on.
He was right. I got in the car. It smelled of Marlboros and too much cologne. Freebird was on the radio. Later he went to UVA and then dropped out. He joined the Army and got a medal for performing CPR on another soldier. After the initial fame of such an act, he disappeared from my view. I think of Mighty Mouse whenever I hear Freebird or someone references Skynyrd.
The dispatcher called the on-duty officer to come back.
There’s a kid name of Lance with Mighty Mouse. Kid says there’s something going on at the house by the Stadium.
Henry Turner’s house?
I think so. The big yellow one. Some new folks moved in a few months ago. This kid says they’re gone now and (dispatcher looks over at me) you should come back and hear what’s what for yerself. We were sitting in the officer’s office when I retold the story slower this time with Mighty Mouse adding his two-cents whenever he felt my credibility was going south.
I know it sounds messed up, Might Mouse said, but you should’ve seen this kid when I picked him up. Just a wreck, falling apart, crying, screaming at me. That can’t be an act sir. It just can’t be.
I didn’t remember crying or screaming at him at all.
We’ll look into it. I went by on the way in. The plywood is damn odd, I’ll give you that. You say he was doing renovations.
Yes sir. But the renovations were just plywood over the windows so nobody could see what he was doing. I said. The words sounded foreign now. As if I were reading a section of a play out loud in school. No emotion. No passion. Just words.
We’ll look into it.
Mighty Mouse dropped me off at my house. He put the car in park and said, Ya’ know I got an Uncle my Dad says is always running up bills and disappearing. Say nobody can ever find him but the Post Office. Somehow the post office finds everybody, eventually. Maybe you should write your friend a letter.
She doesn’t live there anymore. I don’t have her address.
That’s the deal-eeoh kid. The post office will find them for you. They forward letters to the address the Dad left behind. He’s got to get mail, right? Bills and letters and stuff. Try it.
The next day the teacher called Allie Watson’s name. I looked straight ahead hoping no one would notice me at all.
I knew what happened to her. I knew what had been happening to her. The police knew (or believed me, I hoped). And Mighty Mouse believed me. But I couldn’t tell the kids around me. This wasn’t locker room gossip and Man-Did-We-Get-Wasted conversation. The gravity of her pain followed me like a crippled but loyal dog. I started a letter to her every day for a week. I didn’t know what to say or how to say anything to her. If it ever got to her, that is. If her Dad didn’t open it first.
A month later it was bitter cold. Snow fell and fell. I was watching it fall, looking at a Polaroid of Allie walking down the hall in school. She wore the bracelets I now hated and acid wash jeans. Her smile was beautiful but knowledge changes our eyes. When I saw this picture months ago I saw my future wife. I saw the girl who would become the woman I would die for in any romantic way possible. I would live for her, then die for her. As is right. But now I saw the sadness in her eyes. I understood what it means when the smile never reaches the eyes. She was sad in this picture. Alone but brave enough to hide it. Strong enough, maybe, is what I mean. I didn’t see it then. I saw what I wanted, not what she needed.
We were out of school due to snow for two days when the police officer showed up at the house. I heard Mom talking with him briefly then she called me out of my room.
Hello Lance. He said. I’m Officer Merton, remember me from a few weeks ago?
Yes sir.
I need you to come with me to the station.
What did he do? For God’s sake Lance! Mom yelled.
No ma’am. Because of the cold, the pipes burst at Henry Turner’s old house. Water was pouring out so a neighbor called the utility company. Utility man called us when he got in the house. Your son is a witness.
Witness? Lance what the hell? Mom said.
Officer Merton said, I need you to come to the station and tell the investigators from Richmond what you told me son. Can you do that?
Yes sir.
When we arrived I saw Mighty Mouse’s Fairlane outside. He was talking with two men in suits when we walked in. I told them the story that by now you’ve known for too long.
When I got back home I started a letter and finished it. It was simple.
Dear Allie,
I miss you. Please reply to this letter. I hope you’re Okay. Reading any good books lately? I bought you a Duran Duran poster. I just need to know where to mail it.
Your friend always,
Lance-alot.
I never received a reply. It was months before Officer Merton said there was even a lead. It fizzled out. Eventually I saw contractors in Henry Turner’s house making renovations. I watched from the wall. I spent lots of time on the wall after she left. As if I could change things by watching it. The chains were probably thrown away along with sheet rock and old toilets. The teacher stopped calling her name. I framed the Duran Duran poster I bought Allie Watson. I read everything Heinlein ever wrote before I graduated high school. By then, my depression had won completely. I skipped the stage walking..
Part 3
I live in the projects now. Well, what Richmond calls the projects. Mostly poor black people, single moms, and old bastards like me who just never lived righteous. I get a small disability check and when Mom passed there was a little life insurance. If you don’t mind Deviled Ham sandwiches and water for most of your meals, it’s not a bad life. The Stoics would be proud of my spartan existence even if it’s not of a philosophical bend. Lately, I’ve been working under the table for a Man who tears down houses. It’s fun some days. Swinging a sledgehammer, ripping things apart for pay. He gives me 60 dollars a day. This morning it was raining so I called out (texted, technically) of work. I just wanted a decent cup of coffee.
If America is a melting pot, convenience stores are the ladles with which we are scooped and then poured into the streets. Homelessness stands silent as khaki wearing managers, pant sagging teens, and soccer moms jockey for the pricey speed of modernity’s promise. There is no black, white or indifference here. Gimme what I want-NOW! Or I’m calling the 1-800 number. IMPATIENCE UNITES! should be printed on money as the trustworthy deity loses to the crushing need for instant gratification. This is not a rant chastising my countrymen. Just an acknowledgement of my frailty as I walked in the pouring rain to avoid the trouble of brewing my own coffee.
The store was busy. A nice smelling woman held the door for me as my arm played umbrella. I poured my black gold into its paper cup and took extra napkins for the bathroom. The clerk knows me. When my change was lacking he just nodded his head towards the door and I, in acknowledgement of his kindness, walked out without looking at him again. I stood under the awning a while watching the rain for signs of weakness. The ice cooler to my left stuck out just far enough to have rain tapping its forehead in syncopation with the swish-whoosh-swish of passing cars of Broadrock Boulevard. At the intersection of cooler and store sat a woman who, at first glance, seemed a pile of forgotten dirty clothes. .
I watched her long enough for me to jump a bit when she moved. A yawn with intermittent teeth opened from underneath the stocking cap. She moved side to side then began to stand like an elephant finding its feet. Finger-less gloves pushed the grungy stocking cap up. There I saw a mask of freckles buried beneath years of sun and sorrow. Her double chin, skin, not fat, rounded her face, hiding her equine jawline. My mind danced more than my heart as I tried to tell if it was really Allie Watson, all grown up and defeated, or my Fifty-year-old mind trying to find meaning. I looked away.
Hey, she said.
I looked further in the opposite direction.
Hey. You hear me sir? You have some change to spare?
I looked at her hoping she’d recognize me. (Like she’d remember you?) I stared for just a second, confirming my belief that Allie was there. (You didn’t do shit, remember? You forgot all about me!)
I could barely swing this coffee. Guy in there might give you a cup. Seems a decent sort compared to the rest of these…Black Hats.
She grunted and surveyed the parking lot.
Shitty day, she said.
Yep. Looks like it might clear up though. Things change with time, ya’ know.
Another grunt.
You married? She said.
What? I said.
Are you married?
I laughed. No. Not at all. I don’t even have a pet.
Another grunt.
I don’t like the married ones. She said. Feels dirtier. You want some comp’nee for ‘bout half an hour?
My stomach did somersaults. If this was Allie Watson, and the more I glanced at her the more convinced I became, if this was her, what do I do about this? Here’s a chance to save her. Or use her. Or just ignore her. Am I making amends in my head or hoping to rekindle a love? I knew the answer. The love. I had missed her over the years. When I still had the lust of a younger man, it was her I dreamed of. Her I imagined in my bed. Only her. My mind had tried to age her appropriately but it was often useless. This, blended with a strain of morality left from a forced baptism led to my ending even my imagined exploits with Allie. But now. Here she is. Grown and willing! Ragged, dirty and chubby as well. I began to imagine taking her home and letting her realize who I am and who she is, again, and then we begin our life. I blurted out,
Sure. I’ve got some money tucked away at the house. I save it up for when the McRib comes back out. (What.The.Hell?)
She grunted. How far away? How much?
I live over in the apartments across from that other store, near the carwash. I’ve got about twenty. But really. I know it’s not much. But really all I want you to do is look at something.
I’ve done stuff like that.
No. I mean look at something at my house. Look at if for a few minutes and leave.
My plan was unfolding as I spoke.
Over by the wash?
Yes.
Twenty bucks?
Yes.
And all I have to do is look at your thing you want me to see?
Yes.
Let the rain clear some.
The years treated neither of us generously. I glanced at her as we watched for the weakening rain. Her lips were parched, despite the weather. Rutted crow’s feet around her eyes seemed more tire tracks in the brown mud of her face. But here she was. Allie Watson. As the time passed after school she became part of my youth’s mythology. Stories we tell ourselves about ourselves that never seem real to ourselves. On occasion I’d see a classmate years after graduation and ponder, Who Is This Person? The image of them I carried like a faded hieroglyph conflicts with the Mom or Dad before me. They were shadows of their youth. And if they were, what was I to them but a cracked picture. A worn Polaroid they spotted on the sidewalk outside a gas station.
Hey buddy, you got some change? My hands shaking from not enough booze.
Lance? Is that you?
Perhaps they shared stories about seeing me out there with a cardboard sign. Shaking their middle-brow heads at my fate. These people I once saw as friends, as the homecoming court as the popular or ignored, these people were ghosts from my youth. Dancing here and there in my head still hoping for the new pair of shoes Daddy promised them for a straight A report card.
But we know, don’t we, how ghosts can jump. We can see in our lives how the hieroglyph gets worn down until it just wants to be remembered even if misunderstood. All who wake up dreaming fall asleep with disappointment. Me. Allie. The hieroglyphic ghosts I escaped from years before. This is not self-pity anymore than it is sorrowful to realize we only have two legs. It is universal and thereby more factual observation than emotional outburst. But we also see, can we not, how the ghosts can jump? How they can pop up with their edges worn complete revealing only their current, true state for all to see. As I stood there, and the rain slackened, and Allie turned her burnished face to mine, I saw a jumping ghost and laughed.
What’s so funny? She said.
Nothing. I was thinking of an old joke.
I like jokes.
Well, the joke is like this: A boy introduces himself to a girl one day in class. They were school kids then, see? And he says his name is Lance. And then she asks…
I looked at her hoping time would stop long enough for her to remember.
She asks what? She said.
Are you lance-alot or just on weekends?
The wind carried the words away just before they hit the sidewalk.
I don’t get it. Twenty bucks you said? Rain’s stopped.
Yep. Rain’s stopped.
We walked in silence to my apartment. I tried to engage her in small talk but realized the futility immediately. What small talk is there to engage in? She lives on the street, I assume, or perhaps some dingy pay-by-the-week motel. I pictured garbage bags of her belongings sitting on a stained, brown carpet. A bathroom where the faucet gurgles randomly as she tries to sleep.
Read any good books lately?
She grunted then replied. Don’t read much. Never got the hang of it.
Perhaps I was her knight, finally. I thought of my own ghostly youth and remember feeling regret at not doing more. As if, maybe, somehow, I could’ve saved her. I should’ve taken the humorous hint and wrestled the honor of my molested Dulcinea from the Devil’s grip. But I wrote a dead letter that landed in a postal trash pile. I tried to figure out where she was by watching her old house with binoculars and ignoring everything else. Self-pity was my heroism. Ignorance my shield. But now I pictured myself as savior. Pulling her, at last, from the clutches of sorrow and pain. Turning the ghost into a flower again through pure love, unadulterated servitude and the repentance that comes from fulfilling destiny.
It did cross my mind, either during the walk or years prior, that my love for Allie was a small ‘L’ type of love and not a capital L type. It was love for its own name, not hers. A fleeting love designed to bolster my life not save hers. My ghost was jumping inside me. I dismissed this idea feeling as I did that it was a capital letter Love for one reason. I had only felt it twice in my life. When I met Allie Watson. And when I met her again.
This is me. I said. Third floor.
It’s gonna be Thirty bucks now.
Okay. I said. Why?
Too far to walk. Lot further than you said. Car Wash is two blocks back. You said right next to, not two blocks from. Ten more or I don’t go up these damn steps.
Forty.
Forty? Ain’t gonna say no and ain’t gonna say sorry.
We walked up the steps. She grunted here and there. It was hard to tell her body size and shape under her clothes. They were a big woman’s clothes hanging from a small woman’s shoulders. I briefly wondered if she got them too large or shrunk accordingly over time. As if the burden of size was too much to bear.
I opened the door. My apartment is smaller than advertised, I’ll admit. The complex people tell me it’s 900 square feet but with the book chimneys in every corner, the bags of recycled cans (I need to turn those in, I know) and other debris, it hardly seems the size of a patio.
I moved an overgrown plant from the wall and turned to look at Allie.
Here. I said as I pointed to the sun-faded but still framed Duran Duran poster.
What?
It’s a Duran Duran poster. Just like I said.
She looked at the poster then back at me. A smile came to her face. It reached her eyes slowly.
Duran Duran. You mean the music group?
Yes. I bought you a Duran Duran poster.
Me? She looked confused. I don’t know about you buddy. Where’s my forty bucks. You promised me forty bucks! Her voice was loud but muffled by all my junk.
I went to a wooden box in my bedroom and retrieved the money. When I returned she was standing near the poster as if studying it.
This is just a picture in a frame, ain’t it? I handed her the money. Thanks. Why would you want me to look at this?
Because you’re Allie Watson. I bought it for you when we were kids. I broke into your house after y’all left. I found your carving in the plywood and bought you this poster. It all sounds so silly now, I know. But I kept it ever since. So I wouldn’t forget you. And how you made me feel. And how I let you down.
I was overwhelmed with the desire to cry. I felt the lump in my throat and that nose tickle that precedes sorrow. The moisture filled my eyes.
She watched me as I wept. She didn’t move. I didn’t move. I just stood there sobbing.
Okay. She said.
Please don’t leave! I called as she opened the door.
I got my forty bucks. I looked at your picture. We’re square.
The door closed. I ran to it like child and leaned against it. Her stench lingered around the door.
Through the door I heard her speak. Her voice was soft but clear like a gently touched piano key.
Lancealot. She said.
I pressed my ear harder to the door.
Lancealot. She said.
I pulled the door open.
She wasn’t there. I looked up and down the hall. Nothing. Even the stench of her faded in the hall.
I could make out the faint echo of what sounded like a woman crying on the second floor landing. Maybe it was the first floor. Convinced that it was merely a desire for a long gone ghost, I closed the door.